The Courage To Heal

Religion, non-impact aerobics and polka music each get their own publicaccess TV shows and audience here. So does drug addiction.

It's called "Positive Faces," an upbeat show on cable Channel 14 thatfocuses on recovery. It's the flip side of the town's intractable heroin problem- the success stories of people who have kicked their habits.

"Willimantic is a recovery town," said Terri Keaton, a recoveringheroin addict who works as a counselor with Perception House, one of thecommunity's several treatment centers. "I can't go to the market withoutseeing someone in recovery who waves or stops to talk."

Since the 1970s, a network of state-licensed programs has tossed lifelines toaddicts seeking to escape their suffering. Halfway houses and supervised-livingapartments are sprinkled throughout Willimantic, providing homes for recoveringaddicts while they rebuild their lives, find jobs and try to root out thebehaviors that trigger relapse. There's a men's home, a women's home and a housefor recovering people who also are sick with HIV. There are self-help meetingsevery night of the week.

"Addiction is a disease," said Diane Potvin, the creator and co-hostof "Positive Faces." She's a recovering alcoholic who for 14 years wasthe executive secretary to the first selectman of the town of Windham, of whichWillimantic is a part. She's now a member of the staff of the nonprofitConnecticut Community for Addiction Recovery.

"We don't make it easy for people to stop and get better. Especially withheroin. We put shame on them," Potvin said. "On this show we try tobring recovery out of the shadows, to rid it of the stigma."

Twice a month, Potvin and a volunteer crew of recovering addicts meet at thecable TV studio to field viewers' calls and ask guests in recovery about theirnew and sober lives. Quite often, the drug the show's guests have kicked isheroin. Heroin was the downfall of Columbia native James Couchon, a guest on theshow in July.

"When I was using, I couldn't walk down the street in Willimantic withoutthe police slowing down to see what I was up to," said Couchon, who is nowclean and has a good job, a good marriage and a home.

Couchon hoped his televised story of transition to a better life might aidsomeone struggling with addiction.

"It's been 10 years in recovery for me. I don't mind talking aboutit," Couchon said later. "I had a lot of fun doing the show."

So do the people who tape it.

One hot August night, bright TV studio lights heat up the set. Potvin and aco-host, Geri Langlois, a former Thompson first selectman and staterepresentative recovering from cocaine addiction, get ready for the latest show.Their guest, Heather McDonald, will speak about a program in East Hartford thathelps people battle both addiction and mental illness.

Across the hall in the control room, volunteer technicians Alan Szumkowski,Carlos Rivera and Kara McMellon joke around before taping begins. The three arerecovering heroin addicts.

Szumkowski, Potvin's brother, kicked heroin four years ago.

Rivera and McMellon got sober while incarcerated. They met at a 12-step meetingin Willimantic, where they were living in separate residential treatmentprograms. Both had been sent on probation by the Department of Correction tolong-term programs to kick their habits. The two programs in Willimantic whereeach landed are among the 58 state-licensed residential rehabilitation sitesacross Connecticut.

"I'd never heard of Willimantic," said McMellon, who was born in NewHaven. "Coming up here in the van from York prison in Niantic, I lookedoutside at the country and fields and thought they were going to drop me off atsome little farm. Willimantic turned out to be a positive place for me."

Offering A Haven

The addicts and drug-addicted prostitutes in Willimantic are more visible thanthey might be in larger cities. Here, they stick out like rocks poking from thesurface of a shallow pond. But sympathy - and empathy - are also closer to thesurface.

"In this small town, everything is more concentrated, more obvious,"Potvin said. "Heroin has destroyed everything for these people. I'm surenot one of these girls woke up one morning and thought they'd like to become anaddict and a prostitute. It's where the drug pushed them.

"But we shouldn't lock them up in jail because they're `bad people.' ... Weneed more treatment and less prisons."

Willimantic has outreach programs to help addicts still on the streets, socialworkers who try to keep addicts and prostitutes from risky conduct that couldresult in AIDS or hepatitis, and several church groups that provide food,clothing and friendship.

"All the agencies work together as a team with referrals, finding work orjobs," said Mercedes Arroyo, director of the Puerto Rican OrganizationalProgram, a nonprofit agency that helps the town's many Hispanics. "A lot ofpeople come to Willimantic because it's a better place to live and raisechildren. But they may need help."

Moises Ramirez, who is captain of the local Salvation Army post on PleasantStreet, offers several youth programs, including soccer teams. He said he getsassistance from other agencies if he runs into a situation he can't handle.Willimantic is a friendly town, and he says he has seen no racism since hearrived here six years ago. Ramirez said he tries to steer children away fromdrug use and crime.

"That's what the Salvation Army did for me in Mexico City," he said."I began going there when I was 8. We're not here to change the whole town.We can't. But you never know what that one kid you help will turn out to be - ascientist, the next Martin Luther King."

There's also a soup kitchen that started in 1981 to help those who becameunemployed when the town's thread mills were shutting down. The Covenant soupkitchen is in the basement of St. Paul's Episcopal Church on Valley Street, afew blocks from the Hotel Hooker, town hall and Jillson Square. Its director,Paul Doyle, is a minister who came from a church in Palm Springs, Calif.

The kitchen averages 24,000 lunches and 14,000 breakfasts a year.

"The soup kitchen is a safe haven. We work really hard to make sure thereis no judgment," Doyle said. "Heroin is the drug of choice here forpoor people in this town. It's cheap and available. Heroin is extremelyprevalent here."

If people ask for help, Doyle and the staff will do what they can to get theminto treatment.

"Sometimes the easiest part of all of this is stopping using. Then comesthe hard work - dealing with life without using," he said. "To get ridof your `lifeboat' for the hard times is the most difficult."

The Rev. Fred Wright, pastor at the First Baptist Church on Jillson Square, saidhe is sometimes asked by out-of-town folks if he's nervous about thedrug-addicted prostitutes who hang out at the park next door.

No, he said.

"I'm a country preacher and this is my first time really learning aboutaddiction," Wright said one night at a meeting in his church. "But Isee it's not about a bad person becoming good, but a sick person gettingbetter."

At least once a week, social workers arrive at Jillson Square in a camper, put acard table in front of it and begin passing out handfuls of condoms toprostitutes. Inside the air-conditioned camper are cold sodas, fresh pastriesand Dorcas Velazquez.

At 5 feet 2, Velazquez isn't an imposing figure. But the 54-year-old mother oftwo commands respect from the prostitutes and homeless as a caring counselor.

"One guy told me I do more for him than his mother," she said."Who am I to judge? The person who is addicted - they ache, they're sick,and the only thing that will make them feel better is a bag."

Velazquez was raised in a strict Christian home in New York City by parents whotaught her to respect everyone and not to laugh at anyone's pain. She moved toPuerto Rico to raise her two small children, fearing the drugs and crime in NewYork. She moved to Willimantic about 12 years ago and worked for a localpediatrician. He suggested that she apply for a job as a social worker becauseshe was bilingual and an excellent listener.

Velazquez has seen many addicts die of overdoses on the street or inside theHotel Hooker.

"Each room in the hotel has a story you can tell," she said."People have been raped, people have died in there. There have beenoverdoses, beatings."

She cried when one of her clients, John Davis, died recently. She comforted hisgirlfriend, Jessica Canwell, who came to see her in Jillson Square.

"I feel that the people who died, I can't do anything for any longer,"she says. "The people who are alive, I can help."

She waits for the moment when an addict knocks on the door of her camper andsays he wants to get into a program.

"We're here to wait for that moment, when they say it's time," shesaid.

`What A Journey'

Szumkowski, one of the "Positive Faces" volunteers, had tried to stopusing heroin many times. He's been clean and sober now for four years.

"I began using heroin in my teens," says Szumkowski, 48. "We usedto come down to Willi from Manchester to buy if there was a raid in Hartford andthe heat was on."

Today, McMellon, 32, is a trusted clerk in a local store. It amazes and humblesher that she has a "normal" life.

"I don't want to ruin this. I have my own hopes and dreams. I just want tobe happy. I used to walk down the street and proclaim that I was an addict and Itruly thought I was happy. But I didn't know how much drugs distort until Istopped."

She started using at age 13, quickly progressing from alcohol to cocaine toheroin.

"I kept it up until Oct. 2, 2000, when I went to jail. ... I had a terriblehabit. Three bundles [30 bags] of heroin. I began shooting cocaine to offset theheroin. Heroin made me feel wonderful. It makes all your troubles melt away andthe world is wonderful. You know the feeling? Well, it's like hugging a bigwarm, fuzzy blanket right out of the dryer on a winter day."

Rivera, 34, another volunteer, is a strong, stocky man with a hoarse voice and awarm smile. He was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico, where he dreamed of becoming aboxer or ballplayer. Instead, he became a gun-wielding heroin addict who brokehis mother's heart by fighting, robbing and stealing. He spent most of his teensin prison.

"I never got past the fourth grade. To me, jail was the school of life. Iwas a thief. A liar. A cheat. A troublemaker. A punk. My father was an addict.My mother wasn't. He was shot and killed in 1980. Drug business. I have fourbrothers and three sisters. They're all crazy for dope. I had three brothers dieof AIDS."

He says he was a "revengeful person" then who loved fighting.

"You want to mess with me, punk? Put a bag of dope in my system and I wassuperman. I was the same punk, the same jackass everywhere. To me, the AmericanDream was to go to New York and sell drugs."

So he came to America, first to New York, then to Waterbury, where his motherwas living with a married daughter. His arrest there on drug charges put him onthe path to recovery.

"I graduated from the streets to the pen. From the pen, I got sent toPerception House in Willimantic. That's how I got here."

Today, he's a kitchen supervisor at a local restaurant, proud of the promotionshe's gotten and thankful for sobriety and for Kara. He speaks to any addict whoseems receptive.

"My faith is strong. My biggest enemy is loss of hope and despair," hesays. "Biggest thing I ever did for myself in recovery is open myself up towhite people. First I got a maintenance job. Now I'm a prep supervisor. What abless. What a journey."

THE SERIES

Day 1: Small town, big-time heroin use. Day 2: Death at the Hotel Hooker Day 3: Rich, poor middle-class - no one is immune Day 4: Recovery, the flip side of addiction Day 5: Can't somebody do something?

Jessica Canwell spent her 23rd birthday in recovery far from Willimantic. Though she'd only been there a week and was having trouble adjusting when the house in Norwich celebrated her birthday, all Jessica could think about was what was going on back at the Hooker Hotel. She said she was scared...

A Willimantic Christian youth group puts on sketches of young life in the town, and depicts the ravages of alcohol and heroin use, using blindfolds to symbolize a cities' blindness and the blindness of the users.

Each month cable access and the CCAR put on a television show in Windham/Willimantic for recovering addicts. It's the only show of its kind in the state, and is offered because of the number of recovering addicts, and current users in Eastern Connecticut. Carlos, works the sound board and the title...